Being Alone with Nature

Have you ever spent time alone with nature? What I mean is not just going to be with other people there or just going hunting to kill things there but just going and being alone with nature almost like a friend or a lover or talking to God?

This is sort of my relationship with nature always since I was a little child. My father's father was a hunter so he grew up in nature too a lot in all the western states from California to Washington to Arizona to Texas. He was born in 1916 and his father was an Electrical Contractor throughout the western states where he traveled with his family until he bought a house in Lake Forest Park in the Seattle area around 1927 I believe.

So, because my father became a vegetarian for health reasons in 1936 I wasn't brought up as a hunter too even though we shot jackrabbits in the deserts outside of Los angeles from Mohave to Red Rock Canyon in the 1950s when I was about 8 and older until I was 12 to 15.

But, mostly I just loved wild open places that were beautiful where the nearest person was a mile or more away from me and hiking alone or with my parents and maybe a friend through beautiful wilderness areas of California or the western states as I grew up. I never really liked cities at all even though they are full of distractions mostly I just watched too many people beat up and killed and destroyed by cities in one way or another as I grew up so I now view cities as places of human suicide and self destruction mostly. Even though most universities and places of higher learning are there too. So, cities are a very strange paradox of the best and worst of humanity where people learn but also go crazy and die a lot from smog and drugs, and crazy people with knives and guns.

Though I have met some of the craziest people in the most remote places too. Almost as many crazy people as in the most urban areas of the world. So, over time after living in remote beautiful areas I slowly moved to beautiful smog free areas that usually are by the ocean like now. But, even now at 65 I live somewhere I can walk along the ocean or ride my motorcycle along the ocean and watch the sunset as I ride any day the sun is out year around. But also, I can drive one mile from my house with my dogs and be either on the beach walking my dogs at day or night or I can walk during the day in the forests within 1 mile of my house too at least one mile from the nearest human being. Life is still good at 65!

But, the most important parts of growing up were always being alone or with family or friends in the forests away from everyone. Away from all the harshness and death and mayhem of cities where people are so tortured and die so young so often. The forests are my church and always will be, the oceans and the wide open deserts too where God is always there for me no matter what.